"Hi! Sorry, I know I'm a little late, I slept in a few minutes."

"How are you? --Oh, wait, sorry--" He sticks his hand out.

"No, it's fine, you can keep your mana today."

"Re-really?"

"Yeah. Today's your big day, right? Birthday, Easter, everything?"

"Yeah! Well, Easter's tomorrow, and my birthday's Friday, but today is cooler so we're having them today."

"Hey, whatever works for you. I'll, I'll probably be practicing in the gym for some of today, with Nick and George and everyone, 'cause, y'know, graduation? But you'll have Toby around, at least, and I promise I'll be there for the party. If that's alright with you?"

"Yeah! Yeah, of course, man, graduation comes first. Never let me distract you from the grind."

"Thanks."

And when they reach Tampa's reading room: "...Toby's not here."

"I mean, we weren't here until a second ago. Does Toby normally wake up this early?"

"...No. I guess I just thought..."

"Well, see, there you go. He normally eats breakfast, right?"

"...Yeah?"

"And we definitely told him he can eat with us today. So you'll see him at breakfast."

"Yeah, okay." Time for an hour and a half of Tommy being totally unable to sit still! He takes Henry and Shroud out to feed them a bit of mana and some mal grubs; he checks the room for mals once, twice, thrice, making sure to check the drawers and the corners and so on. (He doesn't find any mals proper, but he does find a small family of agglos, which he calls Clay over to kill for resources.) He picks at the stitching where he sewed his shirt up a bit sloppily, and then he rips it on accident and has to do an even messier job trying to get it done in time for breakfast, because he can't talk to Toby for the first time with a big hole in his shirt, that'd just be embarrassing. 

Clay goes for breakfast before he does. Seniors eat first, freshmen eat last. The minutes go so slowly. He says a few Our Fathers, and a more freestyle thank you God for letting me talk to everyone again, and for the food and friends I'll be seeing at breakfast and at the party tonight, and for keeping me alive even when I didn't really want to be, and for getting Terrence out even though he doesn't believe in You, and for other things probably, and then he still has more time to kill, so he checks the room for mals a fourth time, and by the time he's done it's finally time for him to go to breakfast.

...Toby and Clay aren't sitting together.

"Hey, Tommy."

"Why's Toby over there?"

"I dunno. I checked with him that he knows he's allowed, and I know Alex was talking yesterday about the party, so..." Shrug.

"He definitely knows it's today, right? We didn't, like, say the wrong day, did we?"

Shrug. "I mean, you were there, right? We said Saturday."

"Maybe he thought we meant a different Saturday?"

"I mean, even if he did, I just reminded him, like, five minutes ago. Maybe he just wants to sit with his other friends for breakfast? I can go ask now, if you want."

"No, it's--I mean--you're sure he knows?"

"Pretty sure, yeah. He wanted to double check the time for the party, I told him it was 8pm tonight, after dinner, and he said he'd be there."